Review: No Love Lost is best enjoyed with an open heart
Zine published by Baby Teeth Journal
Review by Zoe Witenden (with help from Martha Latham)
I love love.[1] This is something I have repeatedly, drunkenly exclaimed to my friends after consuming any media about it. Even as an anti-capitalist, I love love so much that I even love Valentine’s Day – this year it was my favourite day of the year, filled with love songs and love-themed trivia and loving friends. I also love to be critical, which I’m learning to love about myself.
No Love Lost: a zine mausoleum for love poems that have not withstood the test of time is a zine brought to you by Baby Teeth Journal, the little online publisher and press based in Wollongong that love what they do. It is a patched-together blanket of leftover material, much like your favourite one from your grandparent’s place that you wish you had found a way to keep. The longer it’s been in your head alone the less you’re sure that you’re seeing it right but the fondness you have for it stays the same.[2] Each writer brings their own tales and sentiments of love and loss within and in between COVID lockdowns. As a reader, you glitch through bittersweet moments of other people's lives. It takes a moment for the brain to catch up, but when it does the emotion hits twice as hard. I suppose the zine is not unlike love in that way.
So –
With all this in mind –
I will critique lovingly
but I
will
critique
a little [3]
***
Hello. My name is Martha. Zoe did not get to finish this review so I have added my own parts, creating a kind of egg/tofu scramble review (Zoe is a vegan and I am not). This review will not have a consistent viewpoint or voice. I’m not particularly sorry for that.
You will be able to tell the difference between my sections and Zoe’s sections because we are different people so we write differently and we feel differently. Sometimes I have edited Zoe’s sections, so if Zoe’s bits don’t feel like Zoe it might be because I have fiddled. In fact, by this point, you will have already read some of my fiddles. I hope you liked them.
Charlotte is also here. Charlotte is our editor. If some of my sections don’t feel like me, that’s probably because Charlotte has fiddled. If Zoe’s sections don’t feel like Zoe but they don’t feel like me either they also might be because Charlotte has fiddled. Charlotte is the spring onions on Zoe and I’s egg (or tofu) scramble.
Sometimes Charlotte has suggested an edit that I did not respond to because I felt it required more of Zoe’s writing. In these locations, I have included Charlotte’s editorial comments and Zoe’s responses in footnotes. At times Zoe appears to be harsh or critical, perhaps without evidence. This is how a review looks when it first appears. Full of emotion, of love.
When this happens, I ask you to imagine a world where Zoe had the time and brain space she needed to snap it into shape.
You are the eater. Your job is to eat, and not to think too hard about whether you are eating egg or tofu or scallions. If something tastes not to your liking I suggest you add a little salt and pepper or get yourself checked for an egg/soy allergy.
“I love love”. I love love too, Zoe.
***
When I read the first few poems of No Love Lost on my tiny, old iPhone in a tiny, dusty bar, after a martini and an overfilled glass of red wine, I groaned in annoyance at how cliché so much of it was. Then I sat down to read the rest while waiting for the person that I love to get home as the rain beat down on my rooftop, and the giddiness seeped in like the water through the cracks in my walls. Because, of course, this thing we all long for and grasp so tightly, sometimes too tightly when we finally get it, is a constant repetition of itself.
So when the first poet says their friend/lover/comrade is the sun I remember how many of my own friends I have seen that way. I think that maybe some of them have seen me that way too, even if only for a moment. But by the end, I am withered by the sun and burning metaphors. Once they pile on top of each other in my head I find myself pining for something different. It makes the love feel not all that special and unique when it is.
When I turned 23, I would write poems for everyone I loved. Not just long-term lovers, but Tinder dates and friends as well. When my current partner found out, she felt hurt. My poems were special to her, and part of the reason she fell in love to begin with. But then she would see me write a poem for someone else. If I was writing poems for one-time Tinder dates how special could the poems I wrote for her really be? No Love Lost can sometimes feel like how I imagined she felt. How special can love really be if it’s this ubiquitous?
***
These poems made my chest tight, and my tummy tighter. They made me feel good the way that rom-coms do. Even better, they hurt a little bit. I wish I had read Cummings and Mary Oliver, like at least one of the writers has, to feel more qualified in my review, but poetry is for the people, right? It is for us all, and so is love.
There is nothing to truly fault in the content – one can’t fault a feeling. The same is not to be said for the form throughout. I have no qualms with free-form poetry or experimental enjambment. Playing with words and sentences to drag out feelings and emphasise important moments to really communicate a sentiment is the beauty of contemporary poetry. However, I don’t think I ever want to read another Rupi Kaur-style poem ever again. It's a simply boring and overused form, and too many poems in this zine were alike in that way.[4]
When I was studying my Honours someone told me that the value in Rupi’s poems was their ability to be shared. We could tack them onto our Instagram stories, and share them around so they could ring true to the lives of almost anyone who interacted with them. In an era where poetry was written in books, this universality could be considered a weakness. People wanted to be transported into the life of someone else. But the internet has enabled us to add:
your name
underneath the poetry of someone else. In doing so, we share Rupi’s poems to let readers into our own lives, rather than hers.
It's not that these Rupi Kaur-style poems alone were the downfall of No Love Lost. What this zine was really lacking is some good editing, or someone brave enough to say what needed to be changed. Someone to challenge.[5]
One poem barely made sense to me. This warm fuzzy feeling makes me want to say that’s okay, which it is in some way, in the way that journals exist and I want to read them all, but maybe not in the way of a published zine.[6]
The love was there. All of the poets and editors, like Zoe, Charlotte and I, love love. But is love just wide eyes and a warm belly? Isn’t love also learning that your favourite thing to do is eat ass because your partner asked you to try it one time? Isn’t love breaking up, blocking each other and not speaking for the rest of your lives because you know that's what’s best for you? Isn’t love breaking someone’s heart because there’s someone else?
I found the most joy in No Love Lost by rugging myself up, making a hot chocolate, picking one poem and loving it. Reading it two or three times. Writing poems about suns for it. Making playlists for it. Sharing it with my partner. Telling it my deepest secrets. Posting it on my story. Meeting it in Melbourne. Learning to eat ass for it. And then doing the same for every other poem.
Before reading
make spacefor No Love Lost
in your
heart, EaterAnd it will
make love
for you
[1] Zoe: There will be an opening paragraph introducing the zine before this/maybe after the first couple sentences and then may cut some sentences of this paragraph
Charlotte: I think this is a nice opening, and then you can put info about No Love Lost afterwards
[2] Charlotte: This is a cute idea but needs to be a little clearer. The more you try to remember it the nicer it seems, and the further away the actual blanket gets? What are you saying about this blanket that can be more easily connected to the poetry zine?
Zoe: This is less of a universal concept than I thought I think. The idea is that it is a straight metaphor for this patched-together zine of poems from the past, and even though it is a mish-mash, the nostalgia and the relationships attached to it, the sense of home in love, makes it important to you. This also tied to the fact that on first read I was a little "eh" about the whole thing, but it grew on me as I let myself feel the nice things and accept the cliché of it.
[3] Zoe: Enjambment like this (yes I just learnt that word and I will be using it in the review) annoys me in poetry so I think I am being really funny here
Charlotte: lol I think it is funny
[4] Charlotte: Name them! This is a good general overview, but also don't be afraid to get into specifics. You can even put quotes from the poems in the review and then talk about them! See this review for an example: http://cordite.org.au/reviews/fitch-stewart/
[5] Charlotte: This is a big call and needs to be backed up. Instead of saying that the editor didn’t challenge (bc maybe they did?), point out exactly what you didn't like and how it could have worked better. Was it lacking in overall cohesion? Were you looking for more variety in how the collection was put together? Did things feel a little cliché?
Zoe: this was also a dumped thought to further work on. I think it’s kind of thrown together? Like the cohesion was there but only because they're all love poems. It is cliché, but I don't think that’s ALWAYS bad. It’s also hard not to be with love poems which is where the form becomes even more important, in my opinion
[6] Charlotte: Interesting! Name it and explain why it didn't make sense
Zoe: this was very much a dumped thought to be properly fleshed out. The poem I was talking about was "photos of birds with bad nests // easter eggs" and honestly maybe I just didn’t get it? haha
But on the actual poems, the ones that made me think of Rupi Kaur were "blossoming", "softening" and parts of "cosmos" however what I thought was a great use of line breaking was "with you in melbourne" — it’s different and really creative and I think it deserves a shout-out! I also just think everyone deserves a shout-out for being so vulnerable and putting their yearning, aching love poems out into the world
Also I liked the line breaks between stanzas in "silly sandwich poem" — those lines took you away from what you're reading to a moment you have lived, or definitely could have, like straight into a memory
No Love Lost is published by Baby Teeth Journal. Purchase a hard copy ($20) or an eBook ($8) here.
Zoe Witenden wishes she was a teenager now instead of when she actually was one because it might have sucked a bit less. She is a bit of a sook and a bit more of a perfectionist. You can find her taking selfies @zo.wit.
Martha Latham hates art and thinks it should be defunded. She also thinks Myki inspectors should have guns. We really didn’t want her but we needed to hit our gender equity quotas. Find out which of those things are true @sad_goldfish.
This review has been generously donated by Zoe and Martha.
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